VP Jagdeo not admitting sugar is dead

Jun 23, 2025 News

…says diversification of GuySuCo lands will reduce food import bill

Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo

Kaieteur News – Despite years of failures, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has refused to admit that the sugar industry is dead, instead he has talked up the president’s promise of the diversification of Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) saying that such a move will reduce the country’s food import bill.

It is important to note that despite millions of taxpayers’ dollars being pumped into GuySuCo, the corporation is yet to make a profit as it has failed to meet target time and time again. At his weekly press conference on Thursday, Jagdeo told the media that President’s Irfaan Ali’s speech at the Enmore Martyrs’ activity earlier in the week on how GuySuCo will fit into the vision for a diversified economy, was met with “a healthy dose of skepticism and mischaracterisation, or we want to know the numbers, how you’re achieving 25 by 2025.”

The VP explained that the concept was birthed when CARICOM leaders got together and set an aspirational goal, to address the skyrocketing food import bill in the region. There it was decided that there would be an enhanced focus on agriculture to determine if more food can be supplied to the region as part of the food security agenda.

“When this was launched here in Guyana and the heads made their speeches, the president pointed out and I spoke in the afternoon of that very day to a technical group of people at the convention center, and I said for us to achieve this, we will need about $7 billion US of investment in the four, three or four remaining years, the three years to achieve that target, and it has to be done across the region,” he said.

Jagdeo highlighted that he had lamented the fact that in most Caribbean countries, agriculture did not feature in their budgets majorly and there was no major incentive scheme for agriculture. “…we looked at the region and we examined the incentive regime for tourism or the financial sector or other services, and there were very lucrative incentive regimes but very little for agricultural investment. There was very little budgetary support for agriculture and so we argued that the countries had to have a rethink of their budgets and also their incentive regime, and then we may witness a change in the region. We have not seen a major shift in that pattern across the region,” he added.

On the other hand, Guyana has been a net food exporter with the exports traditionally higher than imports, hence there has always been heavy investment into the things necessary for agriculture, the VP noted.

He stressed that instead of focusing on the president’s speech in its entirety, focus was instead placed on the president saying that GuySuCo can be a hub for rural development. The plan is to focus on crop diversification as a country with things like roses, turmeric, cocoa, onion, corn, soya etc.

Last week President Ali announced plans to diversify the GuySuCo beyond sugar and its by-products by producing rice, corn, and cassava. “We have to think strategically of how we will expand the role of GuySuCo. And perhaps it is time for us to reimagine GuySuCo’s role altogether. Why must its mandate stop only at sugar? GuySuCo can and must become a hub of rural economic development,” the president said.

President Ali said that GuySuCo’s land, infrastructure and knowledge base can support the production of other crops as well as livestock operations, agro-processing hubs, farmer trading and extension services, fabrication and engineering services. “The global machinery industry historically recruited machinists and fabricators from GuySuCo. We have to leverage this human capital and human potential. And in embracing this future that I speak of, there will be some exciting opportunities. Crop diversification, skills diversification, income diversification,” the president announced.

President Ali said that the plan to diversify GuySuCo will benefit sugar workers. “We don’t only want the sugar workers to rely on their income from sugar. We want to convert acreage of land into high-yielding production, high-value production, but production that is owned by the workers,” he said.

President Ali also revealed that the government plans to co-invest with workers to establish new economic activities and that more than 20 business proposals have already been submitted for manufacturing and other ventures in Enmore.

“That is why we have to put in this infrastructure so rapidly,” he added, highlighting the urgency of these developments. Looking ahead, the president also announced that an additional 3,000 hectares of land will be converted to support mechanisation in 2025. This is in addition to the more than 5,000 hectares already converted. The President’s proposal to diversify the sugar company comes as GuySuCo continues to operate at a loss.

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